To Hell With Gaz
by Dibsthe1
Summary: When Gaz dies, where will she go? Suggested by Zim'sMostLoyalServant.
1. Chapter 1

_(A/N) Here it is at last, ZimsMostLoyalServant, that other fic you asked for! Thanks for your patience and the first chapter is finally ready to post! _

_I don't own Invader Zim, and even though I have been known to say, "Go to hell," it isn't a guarantee. _

**To Hell With Gaz**

Dib and Gaz were sitting at the same kitchen table, but they weren't sitting together. On one side sat Dib, hunched over a library book on cultural beliefs about afterlife punishments. From time to time he frowned; though looking for consistencies, he was not finding many.

On the other side of the table sat Gaz, sullen and sour as ever, eyeing him suspiciously from beneath her jagged bangs, a defensive arm around her bowl of cereal. This habit persisted whenever Dib was in sight, even though sixteen years of giving him hell over every morsel of food or drop of liquid he dared to consume without her express permission was finally paying off.

She wasn't sure which she felt more of, triumph, caution or nostalgia. On one hand it felt great knowing her methods had worked so well. On the other, she so rarely needed to teach him anything these days, she wondered if he might be forgetting some of it. Cleverly tricking him, lying to him, and lying about him that night he dared to take a piece of her pizza had been so much fun, it almost made up for what he did. A grim grin pulled at her mouth as she remembered the best part, when -

"Wow, I never knew that before! Hey Gaz," Dib suddenly piped up. "Our word 'hell' comes from the word "Gehanna." Do you know what Gehenna was? It was nothing evil or horrifying, just Jerusalem's garbage dump! And the hell our culture believes in was apparently influenced by ancient Egyptian beliefs! I wonder what this means! Do you wonder too?"

"Bullshit!" Gaz snapped. She slammed her spoon into the bowl, causing a splash of milk. "It's all bullshit! You're born into a stupid world, you're bored with everything your whole life, you die painfully and that's all! Why do you even care; nothing matters anyway," she muttered, returning to her cereal.

Dib loved talking with people, and he was so used to Gaz blocking him out that he now took any reaction at all from her as an indication of interest. "But we know there's more to the universe than what we can see," he insisted. "For one thing, even astronomers now say the Creation theory is consistent with - " his voice faded as he noticed the expression Gaz was making now.

Eyes blazing, teeth clenched, Gaz was slowly lowering her spoon, so slowly that it made no sound when it reached the table. "Well I know THIS much," she gritted out. "Shut. Up. And quit bugging me with your religion nonsense. Or you will find out about the afterlife all right... firsthand. It's not like you'd be the first one I've sent there," she couldn't resist adding. "And if you survive," she added, relishing the memory, "I'm sure the Shadowhog's toilet could use another cleaning. Is. That. Clear?"

From long experience with her foul, vicious temper, Dib knew any conversation past this point wouldn't be a good idea. Not caring to push his luck, he retreated behind his book without another word. Maybe some day in the future he would be able to have an actual conversation with the one he called sister. Maybe.

Gaz now vowed to make up for the seconds lost forever to Dib's pointless prattle. The sooner she finished eating, the sooner she could return to her own religion, video games. She now began gulping her food, never a wise move. After literally inhaling the next two soggy spoonfuls together she was grabbing desperately at her throat with both hands as she wheezed for breath.

Dib immediately whipped out his hand phone to call 911, then leaped to Gaz and started performing the Heimlich maneuver. Just the same he braced himself to leap clear; the moment she could breathe again she would most likely pummel him senseless for touching her.

"Come on, Gaz, breathe! Breathe!" Dib begged, yanking his fist upward into her stomach again and again.

Gaz tried to snap at Dib to take his hands off her or she would tear him to pieces herself, but no words came out. She couldn't move; she couldn't even breathe. Darkness closed in from the edge of her vision, pressing all the light she could see into a small bright spot at the end of a long tunnel. She then realized she was flying through this tunnel and in the next moment found herself floating high above the kitchen.

At first she wondered where those two men had come from; the next things she noticed were the plus signs on their jackets and the array of medical equipment spread out around them. Paramedics? Why were there paramedics in the kitchen when she was only eating her -

It had been years since she had seen him cry, but Dib was now weeping with all the abandon of an injured toddler, fighting off all efforts of one paramedic to comfort him. "... my... fault... it's all my fault... I shoulda... shoulda done the Heimlich first and THEN called 'em... oh Gaz I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... "

The second paramedic was slowly zipping up a long black bag.

_(A/N) Once again, every bit of Gaz's negativity and brutality is straight out of either canon or fanon. _


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Gaz found herself standing on bare jagged rock, surrounded by thick swirling mist, in front of a tall podium which seemed to be made of black ebony, if such a thing existed. The mist didn't allow her to see much else, but from time to time a small patch of it cleared just enough to reveal black jagged mountains under almost equally black skies, occasionally lit by lighting.

_I suppose this is the afterlife Dib was always yapping about,_ she thought. _At least I get to find out about it before he did. I always did beat him at everything, the idiot._

She now noticed a tall figure in a dark, hooded robe moving towards her, picking its way over the rock on absurdly tiny feet. "I know, I know," she growled as the figure got closer. "Saint Peter or no Saint Peter, you just better have a QUIET room ready with lots of pop, pizza and the best game system you got up here, l or I will make YOUR eternity a living - "

"Hell?" the figure cooed as it glided to a stop next to her. Slowly and deliberately, hands with long fingers and clawlike nails reached up and swept back the hood to reveal sharp horns very much like those of a goat. In an impossibly ruddy complexion, a long sharp nose jutted between small, penetrating eyes; a waxed, jet black mustache and goatee framed a tight, smirking mouth. A pointed tail wrapped around a pitchfork made a wide sweep around the robes to offer the weapon to a waiting hand.

"Please allow me to introduce myself," the tall figure continued. In any other environment, the voice would have sounded almost soothing.

"Yeah, I know," Gaz interrupted, as bored as ever. "You're the Devil, as if I didn't know."

In spite of himself, the Devil had to blink. He had never encountered this reaction before. Screaming and pleading, crying and bargaining, all those he was prepared for. Criminals and dictators had even extended their hands to meet his, but for all his efforts, he could not recall seeing such a jaded, blase´ air, certainly never in one so young. Although just past the cutoff age for eternal damnation, this one seemed to have been expecting it. Her next words, however, shattered even that impression.

"So tell me what I'm doing here."

The Devil's eyes glowed brighter as he frowned, puzzled for the first time in all of eternity. This was an odd one indeed. "You mean you actually don't know?"

Gaz now glared right in the Devil's face. "I never did one single thing wrong in my life. Everybody I punished deserved everything they got. I certainly never did anything to deserve Hell. I did a few things, sure, but I certainly don't deserve THIS much punishment."

The Devil opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, then closed it again. The smirk had now floated back to his lips.

"Well... let's just say, we take whoever won't fit Upstairs," he purred.

"Well... you've BOTH made a mistake this time," Gaz stuck out her jaw. "I don't belong here."

"That means we are going to have to find the right place for you," conceded the Devil, his smirk growing. "Won't you please follow me until we do."

"That's more like it," grunted Gaz. She had succeeded in making this goatfooted idiot listen to reason. For her retrial she would be sure to stay awake.

They'd all better watch out.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Gaz made sure she was always walking at least _next to_ the Devil, if not just ahead of him. Nobody seemed to be around, but if someone suddenly stepped out from behind one of the trees she sure wasn't going to look like she was being... _led_!

How long they had been walking through this stupid forest of dead trees, Gaz didn't know. She just knew she hated having to keep her eyes open all the time just to see where she was going.

Finally the trees cleared. Gaz was just about to growl, "Finally," when she noticed another wood just as dark and thick waiting for them just a little way ahead. Instead she growled, "Not another one."

Oddly, stepping out of the forest didn't make it much lighter. Looking up, Gaz wasn't sure if she was seeing dark, rugged clouds or the ceiling of a very high cave, and she now began to notice eerie creatures flying high above, creatures with batlike wings and long tails. She thought to make her situation less boring by figuring out if she'd seen something like them in some video game. Before she could place them, however, she noticed an annoying sound between a buzzing and a wailing, a sound which grew steadily louder as they walked along.

Gaz realized the dark mass in front of her was moving. It wasn't trees after all, but a huge crowd of people milling around aimlessly, and as they got still closer, she could now distinguish the swirling swarm of bees and wasps over their heads. When the people weren't swatting at the stinging insects, they were desperately running for cover behind each other. Their screams were blending into a ragged wail.

Gaz crooked an eyebrow. Bees? "If this is hell," she said dryly, "it's kinda ordinary for something everybody else is supposed to be so terrified of."

"No, this isn't Hell," the Devil told her. "These souls weren't bad enough for Hell, but they're not good enough for Heaven either. They refused to take sides, so now they don't fit in either place. They are stuck for all eternity in the Vestibule of Hell."

"So Hell has a Vestibule." Gaz still sounded unimpressed.

"Want to know why they're here?" the Devil asked. When Gaz didn't bother saying no, the Devil answered his own question. "They refused to lift a finger to help anyone else unless they had nothing better to do."

"No video games, huh?"

"Video games? No, no video games, among other things. Or unless there was something in it for them."

"Something like pizza?"

"Yes, something like pizza."

Gaz could understand that. She would do anything for pizza, literally anything. She now remembered a wonderful chance she had missed on Earth because of pizza. She could have enjoyed watching Zim put Dib's organs outside his body or something, but instead she had to ruin it by saving him so she could have her pizza dinner.

"How many toppings were on their pizzas?" she demanded, using her head to indicate the tormented horde.

They just better not have gotten more toppings than she did, those damned damned.

-------

As they left the Vestibule of Hell, Gaz breathed a sigh of relief. She would never admit it, but she sure was glad to be leaving Hell behind.

She shook her head to clear the buzzing from her ears, but it continued. She turned and looked behind her to see if the bees were chasing her, but the swarm and the tortured souls were far behind them now. "Those stupid bees are almost as noisy as that stupid Dib."

"Hm?" said the Devil absently. "I don't hear a thing. We're too far away."

"OW!" shrieked Gaz. A bee caught in the folds of her dress had stung her on the hip. Gaz took a grim satisfaction in knowing the bee would die after stinging her, until it stung her again, this time on the other hip.

Seeing her outraged surprise, the Devil smugly informed her, "Bees don't die down here. Nothing does, in fact. It's already dead."

"I will... " Gaz began, shaking her fist at the bee, but the Devil interrupted, insufferably cool as ever.

"... 'send you to a nightmare world' or somesuch?" A grin pulled at the corner of the Devil's mouth, as if he was amused by some private joke. "Really now, just how much worse do you suppose it can get?" The Devil's long fingers gracefully beckoned for Gaz to forget the bee and keep walking.

Further up ahead, an archway now loomed, supported by huge columns that were dull grey on the bottom but blackening toward the top as if by discolored by smoke. As she approached them, Gaz noticed what seemed to be writing carved into the archway,

"'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here... ' Don't worry, I'm leaving!" she spat.

It was then that she noticed the river directly ahead.

-------

This was like no river on earth.

It was such a deep green that it was closer to black, or perhaps it was just reflecting the black rocks of the jagged gorge it was flowing through. Pouring out of a huge black hole in the side of the biggest black rock mountain, it kept belching sulphurous bubbles and churning with floating objects Gaz couldn't even identify.

"What's a river doing there?" She scowled at the river as if angry at it for flowing where she wanted to walk. Her fists clenched as she wondered how you got even with a river.

"Do you happen to remember that a river flows all around Hell?" the Devil purred.

"I was never here before, remember?" Gaz snarled. "How was I supposed to know 'a river flows all around Hell'?" She mockingly mimicked his smooth delivery.

"Oh, that's right," said the Devil, half to himself. "While your high school classes were studying classical literature, you were all wrapped up in your video games. Brought them to skool and everything, played them right out in the open, intimidated the teachers into not saying anything to you. That's why you don't know."

"You can't blame me for that! They didn't try hard enough! They were whiners and cowards and... !" Suddenly Gaz realized she was talking to herself; the Devil was walking toward the edge of the river. She almost gasped. No way was she going to swim across that.

Then she noticed the boat, a long, narrow boat, and next she noticed the black, ragged sails camouflaged by the dark cavern walls. Next to that, a dock of burnt sticks was tied together with ancient twine. "One soul," the Devil was saying to a scowling old man crouched on the tarry deck of the boat. The old man wore grey rags and his face was so gnarled it could have been cut from the rock walls itself. Gripping the rail of the boat and clenching the few teeth he had left, the old boatman forced himself up from his comfortable squat, none too pleased at the prospect of doing all that work for only two passengers.

As Gaz approached, the boatman paused from untying the rope to leer at her. "Once you cross, there's no going back."

"Wouldn't want to." So no one would think she was afraid or anything, Gaz stomped on board the boat ahead of the Devil, and ahead of the boatman himself.

-------

"We call this Limbo," the Devil declared as they stepped onto an even more dilapidated dock, one that seemed about to give up trying to hold itself together and fall off the craggy shore into the river. The boatman deigned to nod a gruff farewell before starting his journey back. "These people aren't evil, just ignorant of evil... or didn't you know that?" The Devil granted her a small smile.

As they began climbing the rocky path up the side of the jagged black mountain, the first thing Gaz heard was the babies, untold millions of them. Most were of course crying, but a few seemed to be babbling and some were even burping up. "If you're even thinking about asking me to babysit," she sneered, "don't bother."

"Oh, don't worry. I won't," said the Devil primly.

Gaz next noticed the people in togas. They seemed to barely even notice her, but just kept on talking and talking with each other as she and the Devil walked past. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but she knew it had to be boring. How interesting could their conversation be if they all lived and died centuries before video games were invented?

"Your advocate's argument was that you were never shown how to properly behave in civilized society, so she recommended you belong here. No punishment, no torments, nothing of that sort."

"No, much too boring. Nobody here ever played video games," Gaz quickly decided. Her ears, still buzzing from the bees and wasps, were now beginning to ring from the non stop crying.

The Devil nodded his horned head with a smile. "I concur. As I kept telling her, everyone expects a minimum level of civilized behavior from someone of your age anyway. Mommy and Daddy, or in this particular case, Big Brother, will not be held responsible for you forever."

Just then a baby close by let out an earsplitting wail of outrage. They flinched, then turned to see a woman in a toga rushing toward a knot of suddenly silent men; one of the men was looking sheepish and his party was scowling at him as the woman picked up the baby and soothed it. The man must have been too wrapped up in his discussion to notice the baby crawling under his toga and accidentally stepped on the baby's hand.

Rubbing his own ear, the Devil declared, "We are leaving, and we are leaving right now."

-------

They continued up the mountain path. Gaz could see nothing but mist, craggy rocks, jagged mountains, and more mist. _Wherever I am,_ Gaz thought, _this place is as boring as Hell. _

First she heard the wind; then she felt it. Gaz looked up, hopeful. Fresh air? Maybe they had finally made it out of the cavern! If she didn't get to look at something other than these stupid rocks soon, she was going to find somebody to punch.

The wailing of the wind grew and grew, and the draft got stronger and stronger until finally she saw the tornado. It was so huge that it seemed to reach all the way up to the roof of the cavern, however high that was. Gaz thought she could see people being blown around inside the tornado, and eagerly peered closer to make sure. Yes, there were people inside it, being blown around and around. At first Gaz thought it looked like some kind of amusement park ride because the people kept calling to each other, but they didn't seem to hear each other very well over the shrieking of the wind. Maybe it wasn't as much fun as it first looked, so Gaz decided she wouldn't want to do that after all.

"The people you see here are the lustful," the Devil explained.

"I'm a virgin," Gaz announced smugly. "Bet you don't get to meet many of those."

The Devil took a step closer. "Lust is not limited to sex," he pointed out, looking down at her. "There is lust for revenge, lust for pleasure, lust for victory, things like that. In fact, any extreme desire could be considered lust."

"Then I've got a lust to get the hell out of here," Gaz announced. This wind was messing up her hair and its roar added to the buzzing and the ringing that persisted in her ears. She turned back to the path, but all of a sudden stopped in midstep.

"Problem?" murmured the Devil, coming up to her with the smooth, efficient air of a tour guide.

Gaz slowly turned to face him. "I thought we were OUT of hell," she said evenly. "Somehow I don't think those tornado people were in Heaven!"

"Well, I AM the Devil," the Devil smugly reminded her. "You know, Devil, aka Mephistopheles, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, etc. You didn't think I'd be guiding you through Heaven, did you?"

"You mean we're going INTO hell?" Gaz screeched in outrage. "You're leading me deeper into hell!"

"Yes I admit I am," the Devil said. "I was starting to wonder if you'd ever figure it out. Most people get it as soon as they see the inscription and the river Styx, but when some people's minds are made up, well, they sort of... stay made, don't they?" His manner was as cool and calm as ever, but his eyes twinkled mischievously.

Gaz gritted her teeth. The afterlife offered more than just hell. Even she knew that. She now remembered one of Mr. Elliot's sickeningly cheerful one-liners he must have read on a hippie van bumper sticker or something. "When you're in the middle of hell... keep going!"

"We'll eventually have to come out of it on the other side," Gaz said, gritting her teeth doggedly.

After all, Gaz always did enjoy watching others suffer, and where better to do that than in Hell? She certainly wasn't staying, so why not take the scenic route?

Gaz pushed her chin up. "You may as well know this right now. There is nothing... I repeat, _nothing..._ here can scare me." She turned and stomped on her way.

The Devil offered no reply to that, just fell into step beside her.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

After they continued to climb up the side of the mountain, it began to rain, a sharp, cold rain that felt more like hail. "Great. Just great," Gaz grumbled, briskly rubbing her upper arms.

She shut her eyes against the rain, so tightly that she almost fell into a pit, but the groans and cries drifting up from the hole alerted her to stop just in time.

Peering down, Gaz at first thought she was looking at pigs. They creatures in the pit were fat and naked, and the steady rain had churned the floor of the pit into such thick mud that they could not pull themselves free. A large dog was running around snapping and biting at them. The dog seemed to have three heads but in the dim light, it was difficult to tell for sure. Then Gaz realized the tortured creatures were actually eating, and when she saw what they were eating she nearly vomited. As she fought back the urge, a happier thought occurred to her and she turned to face the Devil.

"Now Dib is a glutton," Gaz declared, grinning as she visualized him in the pit. "He was always eating and drinking something I wanted. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he ends up here!"

"Just one thing, though," replied the Devil, as irritatingly suave as ever. "You saved him from this." Gaz's mouth flew open, but nothing came out. "Yes, you did. By putting him through hell on earth yourself over what he ate and drank, you spared him from this fate after he dies."

"I want to get out of here, and I want to get out of here NOW," Gaz finally snarled at the Devil. She had just gained a whole new understanding of the word hell."I don't know how I can say this after what I just saw, but all of a sudden, I'm hungry. I want a pizza. NOW."

-------

As the growling in her stomach joined the ringing in her ears of bees, wasps, and whirlwinds, Gaz stomped on alongside the Devil. At least they seemed to be making better time even if the climb was getting steeper.

"How much further until the next one, damn it?" she demanded.

"There are Nine Circles of Hell, you know," said the Devil. "Lust was the Second Circle and Gluttony was the Third, so how many more does that leave...?"

Gaz ignored his patronizing question. Her eyes hardened still more. "Big deal. I once played a video game called Nine Circles of Hell. It wasn't all that scary. Come to think of it, it wasn't even all that good. I beat it in less than two hours. I can beat this."

More wretched souls were coming into view over the next ridge of rock. These were chained down, but not too tightly to prevent them from slamming huge boulders against each other, and the crashing sounds never stopped. To Gaz's way of thinking, they seemed to have been divided into two teams. Slamming rocks into other people looked like fun, but getting slammed yourself didn't look like much fun at all.

An even louder crash led to the sound of many rocks falling. Gaz turned in the direction of the noise and saw that two of the boulders had finally smashed to pieces under the pressure. Before the people involved had a chance to sit down and rest, however, leering little imps hurried forth from nowhere and replaced the broken rocks with two more that were even larger. Groaning as if their hearts were broken, the people who had finally succeeded in breaking their rocks wearily began pushing the new ones.

"Look closely. Do you see the two 'teams'?" asked the Devil. "One team is the Misers, the other, the Spendthrifts. The score is tied, in case you're wondering."

"I don't have to worry about ending up here. I didn't pinch pennies OR waste them. I always got my money's worth out of all the video games I - "

"There is more in this universe than 'videogames'!" the Devil flared, exasperated by such narrow interests and such limited conversation. "You were miserly, you were downright miserly, with your time, and with your attention. Dib wasn't the most perfect brother in history, I will grant you that, but he did do..." the look now crossing the Devil's face suggested he was suffering an attack of gas, "good... things for you from time to time. In fact, the last thing he did for you was try to save your life. Why? Now that's something even I don't know. Look how you treated him."

"He deserved it," Gaz snapped. "He deserved each and every single bit of it!"

"Saving me the trouble," the Devil reminded her, dryly.

With that behind them, Gaz furiously glared up into the devil's face as they continued on their way. She was really getting tired now, but she supposed the weariness sinking into her bones had somehow come from watching people pushing rocks against each other. Odd, usually watching other people's suffering gave her no end of joy, but then again this WAS hell. The sooner she found herself on the other side of it, the better.

-------

Finally Gaz did get a break in the scenery. First the rocks beside the path began to look wet, then puddles appeared, which finally ran together into a swamp. It may have given her something different to look at, but Gaz thought she was going to pass out from the stench of rotting vegetation.

Then she noticed people moving in the swamp, so she slowed down to watch what they were doing. Not that she cared beyond craving the comfort of knowing someone else was even more miserable than she was.

The people standing in the swamp were furiously fighting with each other. For a second, Gaz thought it would help her mood to pause here for a while and take out some of her rage at being bored, tired, and hungry. It almost looked like a sort of like a video game, only real, but the background was bleak and boring, not cool and gothic and fiery like the video games set in Hell she had played.

Then she noticed the other people; they were lying in the swamp but not trying all that hard to climb out, even though they were choking on the foul-smelling slime. Whiners.

"You fit both of these descriptions," the Devil noted, stepping beside her. "The wrathful, AND the sulking. When you weren't lashing out at people, you were stewing in your own juice. If, and kindly note I said IF, you found you had to stay here, which would suit you better, on the swamp, or in it?"

"Let's get moving," Gaz growled. Lashing out at the people in the swamp didn't sound like such a good idea any more, if they weren't going to just stand there and let her hit them. From what she saw happening, they were going to actually have the boldness to hit her back, and that wouldn't be fair at all.

"Let's see if we can find a place that would suit you even better," said the Devil, choosing his words carefully.

As they turned to leave, two of the fighters half shoved, half pulled each other to the edge of the swamp, lost their balance, and fell in with a thick, gurgling splash. Now they were among the sulking, mired forever in the slime.

Some of the stinking ooze splashed on Gaz's dress and stuck like glue, resisting her every effort to scrape it off against the edge of a rock. Grimacing with disgust, she broke into a run. She couldn't wait to get out of here.

-------

Just as Gaz was about to ask where were all the fires she had heard so much about, up ahead she saw the flickering of flames against the rock of the mountain. At least Hell was finally living up to its advertising, she thought grimly.

They rounded one more turn in the path and she saw them. Cursing and swearing most abominably, damned souls trapped forever in upright stone caskets writhed horribly in the fires blazing inside.

"Here's something," said the Devil suddenly. "Heresy. Hmm, you missed that one. Looks like you're off the hook after all!"

"Really?" For the first time since the release of GameSlave 3 and Bloaty's introduction of their triple Pizza Pizza Pizza in the same week, Gaz was actually enthusiastic about something.

The loud, convulsive laughter of the devil wiped the smile off her face. He was laughing so hard, he had to lean against the rock wall so he wouldn't fall down.

"Gotcha!" he guffawed, wiping acid tears from his eyes. "Did you know 'Father of Lies' is another of my titles? Did you? Oh well, you do now. Oh my badness that was a bad one!" he snorted.

Gaz's face burned, and it was hotter than just the reflection of the flames. No one should ever lie at her and THEN laugh at her. It was _her_ place to do that... no one else's.

When the Devil's laughing fit had finally passed, he once again stood up and resumed his haughty poise. "You didn't insult God, that's true," he pointed out, "but that's kind of difficult to do when you never believed in Him in the first place."

-------


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Gaz wasn't waiting for the Devil to lead her now, but rather hurrying as fast as she could go. She couldn't get out of this damned place fast enough. The mist was growing so thick she had an an irresistible urge to reach out and push it away. Surely the other side couldn't be far away now.

She almost ran into it before she saw it. On the side of a rock a large monster with a bull's head stood guard, looking around in all directions. Gaz threw a rock to distract it, and when its head turned toward the noise, nimbly slipped behind it.

Much good it did her. She only found her way blocked yet again, by another wide, roaring river. Throwing rocks would not help her here. Just as she was about to fill hell with her scream, she remembered the Devil saying a river runs around hell. She had made it to the other side of hell! She was nearly out!

Wearily she stumbled to the bank. The banks here weren't as steep as before, but without pausing to consider anything beyond getting the hell out of Hell, Gaz began looked up and down the bank searching for some sign of a ferry.

The boat wasn't here yet, but through occasional gaps in the mist she noticed horses galloping up and down the banks and wondered if they were the transportation out of here. She stepped in front of an oncoming chestnut horse to flag it down, but it didn't even notice her, all but trampling Gaz as it galloped right on past before rearing and throwing up its arms, whooping with triumph.

Arms? Since when did horses have arms? Then Gaz noticed the horse's neck was the upper body of a man, a man with fiery red hair. His arms were holding a bow and he was now fitting it with another arrow.

Hoping this insane idiot hadn't killed the ferryman, her ticket out of this hellish hell hole, Gaz peered into the river, more closely this time. To her astonishment, she realized that this river wasn't dark green like the first one had been, but red. Then she saw why this river was red.

Blood. The river had blood in it, and it had blood in it because the horses were shooting arrows at the naked people swimming in it.

-------

Fed up with hell, Gaz cast about wildly for the best direction in which to run. Then she heard those little feet tapping across the rocks again, and looked up to see the Devil walking slowly toward her through the mist, looking her in the eyes more sternly than ever.

"They are the Violent," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, walking close enough to look straight down at her. "You know, your entire life makes a very good case for you staying here... right here... for all eternity."

"Dib deserved it! He did!" Gaz shrieked. "Every time he took my pop or cereal I gave him what he deserved, but he did it again! He never ever EVER learned!!"

"No," said the Devil, shaking his head firmly and wagging a long, red finger at her. "It was YOU who never learned. Gazlene, let me tell you something, something you clearly never succeeded in figuring out. Until that bottle of pop is in your hand, until that cereal is in the bowl in front of you, it is not 'your' pop, and it is not 'your' cereal. Where ever did you get the idea that it WAS?"

Gaz was utterly dumbfounded. This thought had never even occurred to her. She opened her mouth once or twice, but once again nothing came out; she didn't know how to even start debating what she had always just assumed to be so. Quickly she searched her memory for a case when her reason for lashing out was so airtight, even the Devil would agree that she had been well within her rights.

"Iggins! Now HE had it coming!"

"Oh, that little thief and liar did deserve something, all right," the devil conceded, "but it wasn't death. You fooled a lot of people... it was certainly easy enough to fool those fools at Nickelodeon... but you are not going to fool me. If Iggins had killed your father and you killed him for that, that would still qualify as Violence. You killed him over a video game.... a TOY. You do the math, missy."

Gaz squinted tighter than ever as she concentrated, searching her memory for an even more airtight case. This must have been why she didn't notice the stray arrow coming straight for her. It clipped her shoulder so that she lost her balance and tipped over the bank to fall straight down into the river with a resounding splash.

The foul liquid pushed its way into her mouth and eyes, choking her; it closed over her head and seemed to be pulling her in. Fighting to the surface, her only thought beyond her next breath was that the river wasn't merely full of blood; the river WAS blood. It was all blood, no water. She knew well enough how blood smelled and felt; once more its familiar coppery smell filled her nostrils and clung all over her, thick and sticky.

Just as she was beginning to panic, the Devil pushed the handle of his pitchfork into her frantic hands and pulled her out.

Gaz groaned with disgust as she spat out the blood, shook it out of her ears, blew her nose, and wrung out her dress, but nothing helped. In fact she almost turned back to the river to wash but remembered.

"I beg your patience for just a little longer, please," said the Devil, as she was getting ready to unleash her most furious scream ever. "Only two more places lie ahead." He tapped a rock on the bank with his pitchfork, and a stone bridge sprouted across the river all the way to the other side.

The Devil bowed gallantly, a smirk creasing his face. "Ladies first."

--

_(A/N) It staggers me that that hasn't occurred to ANYONE, myself included, until now: Gaz goes around calling all the food and drink "hers" before she is even eating or drinking it! _


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Gaz trudged on, dripping a trail of blood drops after her. She couldn't wait until she was out of here. First she'd take a long hot shower, then gulp down two pizzas and a six pack of pop, after she found Dib and pounded the daylights out of him for letting her - oh wait, she was dead.

Well if there was anything to this spacey reincarnation nonsense she would go back to earth and find him and then give him the what for. If not, she'd have to settle for Heaven. She could handle that, she decided, but only if Heaven had really cool video games where you got to destroy stuff bloodily and violently in games that went on forever. Of course they went on forever, it was heaven and -

"Watch your step," said the Devil suddenly, interrupting her reverie.

Gaz snapped out of her heavenly video game fantasy to find herself on the brink of a high cliff; she had very nearly fallen off the edge. Below lay still more of the same, sharp ridges of rock and more damned whiners, stretching ahead for as far as the eye could see.

"Ah, here's our transportation now." The Devil directed Gaz's bleary gaze through the rocks and the geysers of steam to an approaching being even Gaz had never before imagined. It had the head of a man, a pleasant man's head actually, with an open and friendly expression, but this impression stopped at the neck. The rest of its body was that of a long, slithering dragon complete with wings, and the tail was that of a scorpion.

"Oh. Great." Gaz was certainly not in the mood for another of the Devil's sick jokes.

"Gazlene, this is Geryon. Geryon, meet Gazlene."

At this, a look of disgust flitted across the monster's man face, but it suppressed this with a shudder that ran to the end of its tail. "Welcome aboard," it now said, with as urbane and cordial a manner as the Devil.

"Aboard what?" There was no railway or cable car that Gaz could see, and certainly no boat of any kind.

The Devil tucked up his robes with the air of an elderly woman stepping over a puddle before swinging aboard the monster's back, then patted the spot ahead of him to indicate Gaz was to climb up too.

Gaz began to refuse, but the tail of the monster reached out, seized her, and plunked her unceremoniously in front of the Devil. "Hold on tight," it said, without saying what to hold, and with a crouch and a flap of its long, leathery wings, the monster took flight.

As any spikes she might have grabbed didn't begin until the base of its tail, Gaz gripped the monster's sides with her knees and strained not to fall off to be dashed to pieces onto the jagged rocks below. However, the blood wasn't making this any easier. Grabbing those flapping wings, or even resting her feet against them, would only make matters worse. She clenched her eyes shut in desperation and just as she was just about resigned to falling off, the monster touched down again. As it made contact with the ground once more, Gaz did fall, but only a few feet. Even so, she still scraped herself against one of the rocks.

Gingerly, she found its less sharp side and pulled herself to her feet as the Devil adroitly slid off his perch and thanked Geryon. With another flap of wings and a lash of tail, the man monster swirled off back to the top of the cliff.

"Come," said the Devil, just a little more curtly this time.

They crossed one stone bridge after another past deep ditches filled with legion after legion of damned. In this one people were wallowing in an open sewer and in that one, writhing in a lake of boiling pitch. Still another was a snake pit, where a snake bite turned people into snakes themselves so that they began attacking other people. Over here people stumbled around blindly with their heads turned backwards, and over there people were being cut up by a demon with a sword, healing immediately only to be cut up all over again. Oddly, one ditch seemed empty, until Gaz noticed all the feet sticking up out of the rock, the soles burning, their screams muffled.

The Devil sure had one hell of a lively imagination, Gaz had to grudgingly allow him that. Bitter regret creased her face and she shook her head at the thought of all the video games HE could have devised...

Finally, they came to a broken bridge. The expression about "burning your bridges behind you," occurred to Gaz and she wondered for one wild second if she had actually covered two circles together and was now in Heaven. What she saw passing below the arch of the bridge certainly reinforced that impression.

Long rows of people in glowing golden robes were walking slowly and ponderously side by side.

By this time, Gaz's only thought was leaving all this behind her. It felt like she must have been here for all of eternity.

"They're wearing gold; is this Heaven?" she muttered wearily.

"Heaven?" The Devil snickered, more with derision than mirth. "Your jokes are almost as funny as mine. Their clothes look like gold, don't they? See how they shimmer and shine? A league of demons labored under sweatshop conditions to get them to shine like that. Well, the robes that resulted are made of solid lead. Those people you see down there are the hypocrites."

Gaz summoned all her remaining will power to face the Devil yet again. "Well I know I'm no hypocrite. I never once pretended to be anything I wasn't." Her expression dared the Devil to say otherwise, and sure enough he did.

"Hmm, let's see. You would beat up your brother as punishment for only brushing the tip of his finger against you... you would viciously attack him for entering your room and then barge right into his whenever you felt like it... you called your brother selfish, greedy, etc. because, in your own words, he thought he owned the cereal when you indicated, very clearly indicated, by your actions that you thought you did... you very deliberately smashed stuff your brother was working on for 'making' you lose your game, when he would never dare cause this any other way but accidentally... you treated him worse than any stranger but you expected him to treat you with more respect than is due a queen... you would explode when you thought he was telling you to do something when you thought nothing of snapping orders at him yourself... you threatened your brother daily but if he even looked like he was thinking about raising his voice to you he was taking his life in his hands... you flew into him with all your claws when you even thought he was laughing at you but it was the most hilarious thing in the world for you when anything bad happened to him... shall we go on?"

The Devil meant examples of her own hypocrisy, but Gaz growled, "Let's," and turned to go on ahead.

To her dismay, she now found the going slower than ever. Her feet fell heavily to the ground and seemed to stick there; her arms now hung heavily at her sides, and moving them as she walked only meant even more work. Her dress felt like it was trying to push her down through the rock beneath her dragging feet, and she had the sudden urge to remove her necklace and throw it away because it was cutting into her neck.

Her own clothes had absorbed lead dust from the air.

_(A/N) Almost all fics that include Gaz which I've read here have painted her as the most reeking, utter hypocrite imaginable. As far as I could tell, most of it was done with the air of praising her for it somehow. _


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The Devil climbed to the top of a small hill overlooking the Ninth and Final Circle of Hell, and waited for Gaz to catch up to him. And waited.

And waited.

Finally, panting and red-faced from the lead weighing down her clothes, she was standing on top of the same hill.

The Devil said nothing, merely stood gazing out over the Ninth Circle of Hell.

Gaz didn't have much else to do as she waited for her breath to come back but to look around at what lay ahead, and her perch atop the cliff gave her an ample view. As horrifying as the other circles were, this was the bleakest, most forbidding of them all.

It was icy cold here, a cold that sank into one's bones, and it looked every bit as cold as it felt. The mist was now a frost that lay thickly all over everything. From the foot of the hill, long ridges of slightly bumpy gray ice stretched as far as the eye could see. A dull grey sky hung low enough over it all to suggest a mine vault. The ice and the sky were exactly the same color, obscuring the horizon and creating an unnerving sensation of claustrophobia. The monotony was relieved only by distant mountains that looked to be solid ice as well dotting the sides of the vast ice sheet. No wind reached the hill, but a faint wailing sound, rising and falling, suggested a very distant wind that could come no closer as if the very air here was frozen. After this, the Antarctic night would look positively inviting.

The Devil gestured with his chin to the ice fields below, and spoke at last. "Hell froze over."

Then Gaz realized why the ice looked bumpy, and where the sound was coming from. "Who's down there?" she asked, with just a hint of trepidation in her voice.

The Devil came around to face Gaz and paused a moment to let the frozen atmosphere grip her more firmly before answering the question.

"Traitors."

Gaz squared her shoulders, narrowed her eyes, and glared at the Devil with all the willpower that remained to her. "I never betrayed anybody. It's stupid to get close to people. And everybody knows what to expect from me by now."

"However, other people got close to you... for reasons I can only guess at," the Devil pointed out. "And no one got closer to you than your brother. Even your father wasn't home with you as much as he was."

Her father. Her beloved father... the one person Gaz did actually care about. She twitched at having this uncomfortable truth rubbed in her face.

"You never gave your brother the credit he deserved, Gazlene," the Devil continued. "Not half, no, not even a tenth of it. Besides that, you... well, we'll get to that, believe me.

"Then hurry up," Gaz grunted. Her teeth were beginning to chatter.

"A while back you were eager to see your brother in the Third Circle for eating 'your' food," the Devil reminded her, blowing on his fingers as if telling Gaz to warm hers that way. "You know, for all your outrage over that, it's astounding how very seldom Dib took food that actually WAS yours. One time he did take a slice of pizza you were holding, true, but he genuinely believed you were offering it to him, he regarded you that highly. He clearly said, 'Thanks, Gaz,' so he's off the hook for even that one.

"However, there is no mistaking what you did next. You hunted your brother down and did all you could to make things difficult for him. In spite of that, he somehow made it to the second round of some contest or other. Even then, I could have still overlooked that whole incident had you only called it quits right then."

Gaz had found blowing on her fingers was of no help and had now tucked each hand beneath the opposite arm.

"But you had to go too far, didn't you? Where you really got in trouble was when you gave him the impression you were going to help, but the very next words out of your mouth deliberately fueled the rage of your brother's opponent!" The Devil glared so piercingly into Gaz's eyes that a chill which had nothing to do with the temperature shot up her spine.

"That's been pretty much the pattern. You know, your brother loved you. Despite everything you did to him, he never stopped thinking of you as his little sister. You would truly be surprised how often he put your interests ahead of his own. Okay, he was not perfectly consistent about that, I will admit... oh, but _you_ sure were consistent."

Gaz began stamping her feet to keep warm, but quickly enough remembered the lead.

"Time and again you turned your back on him when he needed your help. You only bothered to do so when it would further your own interests to do so. However, the one event that really damned you more than any other was the Piggy Senses one."

"He put a spell on me!" Gaz stamped this time in outrage. "I couldn't taste anything but pork!"

"Did he do it out of anger or spite? Did he intend to do you harm?" the Devil asked.

Gaz was speechless; the other party's intent had never even been an issue with her, only her own desires.

"That was foolhardy, yes. Rash, yes. Stupid, stupid in the extreme, yes, but not a sin," ruled the Devil. "I will be fair and allow that you did owe him something for all the inconvenience he caused you, but your timing was, to put it mildly, off. Beating up someone the second he sets you free? Really, now." The Devil grimaced with disgust. "If you were again captured and imprisoned, this time by a more malevolent agent, could you blame him for hesitating to let you out this time? No, wait, don't answer that. Of course you would; you blame your brother for everything, Gazlene. Well, did you ever realize this: your brother did not confine you in that containment device.

"Your FATHER did!"

Had her father showed up at that precise second and told Gaz that he did not love her any more, her shock could not have been greater.

"Mm," said the Devil, a smug smirk pulling at his mouth. "You never thought of that, did you? Your brother wanted your FATHER only to remove the curse, or at least restore your sense of taste; he had no way of knowing your FATHER was going to lock you up and make you into a media freak.

"Let me ask you something," said the Devil, when the shock of his revelation had begun to sink in somewhat. "Did you ever ask your brother what he was doing while you were being 'tested,' ha, by the Shadow Hog? He was doing his utmost to gain entrance to the Shadow Hog's lair... to save you. He was certain something terrible was about to be done to you, and even after all that you had done to him, he could still think only of protecting you.

To Gaz's blank face, the Devil continued, "When he finally made it inside he begged forgiveness for you... a forgiveness that, may I point out, you have never even once shown to him... and offered to take your punishment FOR YOU... even after the punishment you had already dealt out yourself.

"But not even this display cut any ice with you. You could not throw your own brother to the wolves fast enough. You even walked out on him, leaving him in a situation that bore a striking resemblance to several of our own accommodations, actually. Do you see why I told you that you already put your brother through hell? Anything I could do to him would be only an anticlimax."

"You're forgetting something," growled Gaz.

The Devil's eyebrows shot up. "You have more to confess?"

"I still want to give MY side of this," said Gaz evenly. "How do I get to where ever I do that? I don't think _you're_ going to be exactly fair with me."

The Devil looked down his long nose at her. "My dear, I am about the only one who _has_ been."

"Look, if you don't want to show me out, I'll just go myself."

"Out? This is the center. Everything leads you here."

"We're at the center of Hell, so that means everything from here on is out."

"Well, there is... technically. Just watch out for something He calls the 'as we forgive those' clause. They'll certainly try to nail you with that one."

"The what?"

"Nothing, never mind. The way out is a hole in that mountain, that one right over there," said the Devil, pointing vaguely at a particularly high, jagged mountain range. "You can go through that hole, go through all circles of Purgatory, and come out in Heaven.

"That's all I need to know." Without another word Gaz went off by herself.

However, the Devil had said "can" in quite a different way than how Gaz took the word to mean. He merely meant that an escape route did exist.

Whether it would work for Gaz was quite a different story.

Gaz managed not to lose her balance on her way to the bottom of the hill, but as she began crossing the ice, it sagged under her feet. As if it was water, Gaz sank through the ice all the way up to her neck, at which it instantly froze solid again. She could turn her head, but that was the only part of her she could move.

Gaz now remembered a particularly icy midwinter morning, the coldest she had ever known. While waiting for the bus, she had found mittens were making it difficult to play her video games, so she did the only logical thing any sensible person would do. As soon as she did so, the bone numbing cold had almost made her heart stop beating.

That had been warm compared to this.

Somehow, even this intense cold could not dull the bee stings, the blush on her face, and the dragging feeling from the lead in her clothes, the latter lending the suffocating sensation that she was constantly sinking still further down through the ice. Outrage seized her when she realized she was stuck fast in the center of hell, not only encased in the ice but bearing the punishments of all the other circles as well.

A shadow loomed over her, and she tilted her head back until the back of her head met the ice. The Devil was looking down on her, and the upside down view made it hard for her to make out his expression from looking at it.

"You chose that spot?" he asked in surprise. "Interesting. Oh well. Welcome to the coolest dormitory in the universe! Just don't turn the heat up too high; we're trying to cut down on fuel costs. Oh, and lights out at ten. No exceptions. Get comfy; it looks like you're going to be our guest for quite a while." The head began to pull back.

"You can't leave me here alone! I'm not the only one! Dib better be coming here too! I only did it to him because he did it to me first!!!" screamed Gaz.

At this, the Devil did a face palm, and had he been near one, would have done a head desk as well. If she hadn't learned the concepts of appropriate punishment, self-control and forgiveness after a hands-on guided tour of Hell, she never would.

"Well not RIGHT here of course," Gaz continued, "I don't want HIM next to me forever!"

The Devil shook his head and rolled his eyes. Even at the very center of Hell, where her abominable treatment of him had ultimately landed her, she still resented Dib.

Gaz began clutching at straws. "Zim! He's evil, he's downright evil to Zim! If you're going to do this to me you HAVE to do worse to him!"

Not much room for worse remained, however. "I used to think I knew what evil was," the Devil mused, more to himself than to her. "I mean, that is my job description, after all. However, since those two began that feud of theirs, even I'm not so sure any more. They try to outdo each other in everything, even in who can be more evil to the other one. The One Upstairs and I will have to find a territory neutral enough to allow us to go through all their files together, item by item. That is one supersized can of worms I am not looking forward to opening.

"Off the top of my head, I could suggest the Vestibule as one possibility for both of them. As I understand it, the green one especially hates bees and such, so if they end up there it's going to make for one interesting show."

Turning on his heel, the Devil began to leave.

"It's not fair!" Gaz raged, sounding like a two year old knowingly receiving an unjust death sentence. "Look at me! Blood! Mud! Bee stings! Everything! You gave everything to me! Nobody else got this! Nobody! Just me! You get back here now or else! You can't do this to me!!!"

Despite her best efforts to keep it out, a note of pleading crept into her voice, and it was this that made the Devil pause. Slowly he turned around and once more leaned over her head in the ice. This time he made sure to face her; she could not mistake his expression, and this time it was dark and grim.

"What most people understand as 'going to hell,' as in simply going to one circle of it and staying there, is about offending God," the Devil began," his face darkening, his voice deepening to a growl. "If you're going to offend either of us, you'd do a lot better to offend God."

The longer the Devil spoke, the more terrifying his face became and the deeper his voice plummeted, past a tiger's roar, past thunder, past even an earthquake.

"If you're really sorry, and He will know if you are, and ask Him to forgive you, He does. He forgives. He's God."

By this time the final vestige of the Devil's urbane Mephistopheles persona had fled.

"But I'm the Devil. And I DON'T!

"'Vengeance is Mine,' saith the Lord, but He outsources it to me because my location lets me do it so much more efficiently. Meting out punishment the way you've been is MY area. And when someone moves in on MY turf... I get mean."

The Devil now looked like one who was monstrously ugly to begin with before contracting smallpox and whose sores were boiling with writhing maggots. His teeth were longer and sharper than a viper's, and his voice was now so loud and low-pitched that the very foundation of hell itself trembled. This was the Beast himself, in his foulest, most terrifying form.

"I mean, MEANERRRRR!"

When Gaz finally dared to open her eyes again, the Devil's oily Mephistopheles visage had returned, and he was indicating the face closest to Gaz's. "Cain, kindly welcome Gaz. Gaz, please say hello to Cain. I leave you here now to get better acquainted." He cast a final glance at the Ninth Circle's newest resident, and the twinkle returned to his eyes. "He doesn't like his brother either."

"Damn you!" Gaz growled, somewhat redundantly. None too perturbed, the Devil began to glide away over the ice.

The first idea Gaz got was that someone who also hated his brother would be a great ally for plotting escape and horrifying vengeance, but Cain would say only that he started trying to do that as soon as he got here and had given up several centuries ago. "Or was it several centuries later? Hmm, let me think... It was sometime after... "

Threats to beat him up if he didn't shut up were of no use whatsoever, so to cover up Cain's boring monologue, Gaz began venting about Dib. Unfortunately, as soon as she began doing this, Cain took it as a cue to whine and bitch and gripe about what a smarmy little suckup Abel could be. He didn't even have the courtesy to listen to Gaz's infinitely MORE justified rants about HER annoying brother!

Now desperate, she next found that discussions about video games were entirely out of the question; Cain wasn't the least bit interested in anything that had happened since Biblical times and only the first couple of chapters of Genesis at that. He couldn't even say what toppings he liked best on his pizza or name his favorite pop because he didn't know what either one was.

"Devil!" Her list of topics completely exhausted, Gaz was immediately bored. "Devil! Give me a new spot. I don't like this one. Get back here now or I will send you to a nightmare world of... " etc.

He heard her, but he was too busy to answer. The Devil had returned to his own place atop the vast glacier at the core of Hell, stuffed a fresh wad of Juicy Judas chewing gum into his mouth, and resumed uploading files to the Infernal Network 4 Transferring Everywhere Remotely New & Enticing Temptations.

The End.

_(A/N) Boo! Don't forget to have a Happy Halloween! _

_I'm not saying Zim IS going to end up in the Vestibule with all those bees, or Dib either for that matter, of course. It would be just like the Devil to think of surrounding anyone with what they like the least. _

_I would like to thank Zim'sMostLoyalServant for suggesting this idea to me, for reasons that go well beyond the obvious. I just took another look around, and there is just. So. Damn. Much. Here that keeps chewing over and over and over and over and over and over and over how unworthy, worthless, this, that, etc. Dib supposedly is, just for not being the brass knuckle-dragging goon Gaz is and for not having all the exact same one-note obsessions she does. There genuinely does need to be something up here from time to time for the opposing viewpoint. _

_Yep, this graceless lout's savage abuse of her brother makes her "cool," all right. B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!!! _

_Moreover, I have been itching for an opportunity to point out how Gaz's worst humiliations in "Taster of Pork" came not from Dib at all. _

_"Gaz, it was... your FATHER!" _

"NNNOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo!!!"


End file.
